gc the Brits in the EU were part of the team driving that problem. They quite rightly see that trade is the route to countries becoming more stable but the EU isn't a common market anymore, it's trying to be a country. With open borders, people don't stay in their own country and make capitalism work, they set off for places where capitalism already offers a comfy life, even of you have almost nothing to offer. The UK is just as bad, convinced that they can open the doors for the people they want but hope the others don't turn up (or are shipped in by companies wanting cheap labour for jobs that shouldn't be done here, they should be done in the countries where the cheap workers come from). Those cheap people are subsididised and rarely pay their way, nor do the companies that import them but nobody but migration watch are prepared to do the calculations. The EU should have stayed as a common market and just traded with countries it wanted to civilise but it has this thing about becomming a world power, despite the cost of its existing citizens. Regardless of the money the EU pours into those countries, they don't become properly civilised because the country doesn't develop industry of its own, they're just cheap people factories.

Both the UK and the EU are still in the thrall of the idea that people + any kind of business = prosperity. It's pyramid selling of an immense scale.

And none of that disproves the problem that the UK likes to interefere, with or without its army. The Europeans are not above using that impulse.

Mar 24, 2018 at 3:27 PM | DaveS

I think that as in Westminster they can campaign and vote, but must declare any interest. As in Westminster, such "interests" may not always be declared.

At Local Authority level, the Planning Permission Committees obtain great influence by a simple show of hands.

But, how many times have the EU used any of its military forces? France yes, UK yes, but the others?
Mar 24, 2018 at 1:31 PM | TinyCO2
Mar 24, 2018 at 2:22 PM | ottokring

If warfare and armed conflict are a failure of Democracy and Diplomacy, the EU does have a track record, since the Berlin Wall came down:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/21/europe-crisis-balkans-eu-membership-russia-china-turkey
"The one place I couldn’t possibly have heard this is Brussels. That’s because the European Union is still unprepared to live in a world where geopolitics has returned – in which governments, as well as much of the public, are obsessed with borders and territories, and tend to define success less by economic growth than by national pride.

This is what’s at play today in the western Balkans, where the EU’s capacity to think and act as a geopolitical player is being severely put to the test. Earlier this month, the EU presented its new western Balkans strategy. Its stated aim is to encourage reform in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania, by renewing the prospect of membership. That Brussels institutions, which find themselves in the midst of a populist upsurge affecting most EU countries, now appear to have the courage to restate that membership promise is no small miracle."

Any soldier should be prepared to go to war as a result of failed politics, but political failures should not attempt to instruct soldiers.

NATO Commanders have tended to have had good awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of the Forces under their command, as Gulf Wars have demonstrated. The EU stands to lose NATO complete with US Firepower and Logistics, and gain well trained armed forces from with the EU, armed with semi-automatic olive branches.

Bungling politicians have been causing problems in the Balkans for well over a hundred years, and it is still rumbling. UK Armed Forces had a difficult time in the early 1990s with taking orders from UN Committee Meetings, that never arrived in time to do anything preventative.

The Ukraine resulted from EU bungling and interference, and Turkey, Kurds, Syria etc?

Whilst being bombarded with doom and gloom I came across this good news story, good news for us who think that a cold period will get us at some point, about hardy cherries in Canada. The guy that developed these must have been a warming sceptic. The BBC had buried it quite well too.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180321-the-secret-cherry-taking-over-canada

gc

Memory fades, but didn't that waste of space John Prescott impose rules on local councillors which meant that if they campaigned on some particular issue they would then be effectively prevented from voting on it because they were deemed to have an interest? Of something along those lines.

TinyCO2, slightly unfair there on the other European states. NATO made a point of involving as many countries as poss in Afghanistan. The Estonians were especially keen.

Ther Germans are contitutionally prohibited from non-NATO operations, the Belgians and the Dutch have no empires any more to protect and the latter have shied away from UN duties since Srebenica. Austria still plays at peace keeping although it did blot its copy book a while backi by refusing to send its guys to the Golan Heights and of the course the Irish still do UN work.

gc, as you say, a lot of these things predate the brexit vote. The UK would have joined in these things anyway. It's part of our nature/plan to be part of clubs. We almost certainly will join in after the additional 2 years are up. But, how many times have the EU used any of its military forces? France yes, UK yes, but the others?

Mar 24, 2018 at 12:08 PM | TinyCO2

The EU Army was what the UK Armed Services were being readied for, which would have seen NATO's role reduced, along with the UK's contribution to NATO.

The Royal Navy has been without an Aircraft Carrier in service for 3(?) years. How many Aircraft Carriers will an EU Navy have, without the UK?

If an EU Army is intended to replace the US as the World's Police, Law and Enforcement Force, the EU is poorly equipped to fight away from home advantage.

What will the UK be able to charge the EU for chartering a fully equipped and staffed Aircraft Carrier per week?